Cruise ships and resort hotels place chaise lounges throughout their facilities for use by their guests. Many times, multiples of these lounges are in a row. The resulting image is appealing, with the lounges all uniformly positioned. Frequently, however, these arrangements do not suit the guest's goals.
When a person desires to sunbathe, he or she will use one of the lounge chairs that provide the desired level of sun exposure. The sunbather then adjusts the adjustable backrest to a comfortable position, and lays down. However, after several hours, the position of the sun has changed, and the sunbather is no longer receiving the desired level of exposure because of the shadows cast by the sunbather on him or herself. The sunbather is then left with two options, find a new chair that maximizes exposure to the sun or turn their current chair around so that the shadow is behind them again. These arrangements result in competition for “morning sun” chairs and “afternoon sun” chairs and/or disruption of the uniformly positioned rows that must then be re-arranged each night.
There is, therefore, a need for reversible lounge chairs that allow sunbathers to position themselves so that they can utilize either end of the chair as the head of the chair and thereby follow the course of the sun during the day without changing or moving chairs.
U.S. Design Pat. No. D233,090 to Laylon teaches a chaise lounge that would look appealing near a pool or on a deck. Unfortunately, only one panel of Laylon acts as an adjustable backrest. Therefore, there is still a need to provide a reversible lounge chair.
U.S. Design Pat. No. D154,031 to Eisendrath teaches a combination love seat, lounge, and bed. Similar to the present invention, Eisendrath teaches the ability to raise either end (FIG. 6). However, the material utilized in a love seat, lounge or bed would not be capable of withstanding the elements. Therefore, there still exists a need for reversible lounge chairs for sunbathers.
Many inventors have targeted lounge chairs for pregnant women that, on initial glance, appear to meet the limitations of the present invention. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,508,384 to Castelot et al. teach a lounge chair having four sections. The middle section has been adapted so that a pregnant woman can lay on her stomach. A fourth section is included that can be positioned either on top of the middle section or the foot rest. When a pregnant woman lays on her back, the fourth section is placed over the middle section so that she does not sink through the adjustable stomach holder. When the pregnant woman lays on her stomach, the fourth section is placed over the foot rest. The fourth section is not capable of being placed in any other position and therefore does not meet the limitations of the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,588,034 to Nation also provides a beach chair for pregnant women. The chair is foldable so that it is portable. However, as evidenced by FIG. 2, it is only possible to inclined one side of the chair.
Nagan et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,246,265) teaches a folding lounge chair. The foot rest and backrest of Nagan can be engaged in more than one locking position throughout their pivotal movement. However, Nagan never indicates that the foot rest can become the backrest or that the backrest can become the footrest. The distinction maintained between the two throughout the specification and claims imply that they cannot. In addition, Nagan is a portable chair that would not be able to withstand the elements if left outside for long periods of time. There is still a need for sturdy, reversible lounge chairs for sunbathers.